South Asia Citizens Web

We the undersigned are deeply distressed at the recent decision by the Prime Minister (in a letter dated 31st December 2010) to delink MGNREGA wages from the Minimum Wages Act even while indexing the wage rate under NREGA to Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labour. The Government of India had already undermined the wages under NREGA through a January 2009 notification, when it imposed an unjust freeze at an arbitrary rate of Rs 100 per day on its wages.

The case of the two diplomats, straddling 11 years, brought to the forefront the issue of violence against women compounded with diplomatic immunity, which needs to be placed and debated in the public domain. To throw the blanket of immunity over the perpetrator is to make a mockery of the law.

The Afghan government is trying to whitewash the Taliban’s image by claiming it no longer opposes education for girls

It is absolutely urgent to revisit our education policy now. The offshoots of unprecedented extremism and violence, we are suffering from, are definitely located in our educational system and policy content too.

Jared Lee Loughner killed six Americans and left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life in Tucson. His motives are variously given as drug-related lunacy and links with America’s Christian Right, of which Republican politician Sarah Palin is deemed an icon. A copy of Mein Kampf was recovered from his belongings.
Malik Mumtaz Qadri killed Pakistan politician Salman Taseer in a similarly unequal contest between a liberal worldview and zealotry that claims a divine alibi. In India, Swami Asimanand, a self-confessed guru of Hindutva terrorists that wreaked havoc across the country and blamed it on Muslims, is in jail.